Tom Connor wrote:

>Karl Miller asks:
>
>>guess my question, assuming there is a point to my rambling, is has
>>the recording changed our valuation of music as a human expression?
>
>The question makes me wonder when the concept of 'definitive recording'
>arrived and how THAT effected audiences.  It certainly seems to influence
>many comments I hear about "which is the 'best' recording" when I think
>it's sometimes 'best' just to listen.

I guess, that for me, somehow that notion of "definitive recording" is
part of concerns me.  It is as though there is some sort of "holy grail"
which becomes gospel.  Has that caused us to want performances that
"sound like the record?"

There have been changes in our values as a society which might explain
why we could label performances of the 19th century as excessive...thinking
about the liberties an individual performer might take in an interpretation.

Sometimes it seems to me to be almost a contradiction of sort...we seem
to value performances which are more precise in the interpretation,
perhaps less romantic, yet, most do not seem to prefer music where the
expressive content is less "romantic."

Karl